Mr. Eko, Hollywood's Biggest Badass

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"Genetics gives me the frame," Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, one of Hollywood's biggest badasses, says of his imposing build. "I have, how can I say, a powerful African frame."

The English actor, born of Nigerian immigrants, plays Crescent City crime boss Robert Morel in Sly Stallone's new shoot-'em-up Bullet to the Head — out now — which is chock-full of badasses. And, not surprisingly, bullets to about thirty people's heads by the actor's estimate.

But despite the rough-and-tumble exterior we're familiar with, Adewale is soft-spoken and jovial, with a fading British accent after nearly two decades spent in the States. And despite playing every variation of a badass during that time, from Adebisi, the leader of a black prison gang in HBO's Oz, to the spiritual former gangster, Mr. Eko, in ABC's Lost, to his recent turn as the ruthless Pike in The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, which debuted at Sundance, Adewale aims to steer each character away from being just any generic villain.

"The last thing you want to give your audience is something typical," he says. "You want to give them something to talk about, think about, laugh about, and enjoy. Something unexpected."

"Eko was a badass with a heart, who was trying to somehow redeem his soul though the love for his brother... Of course, when he did have to put it down, he was categorically brutal. He would bless you with one hand and knock you out with the other."

Morel shares Akinnuoye-Agbaje's gentle and cerebral sophistication, which somehow all Britons are born with, but hides a "belly of darkness" beneath the calm. He's also walks on canes due to an unnamed impairment that the actor developed with director Walter Hill (The Driver, The Warriors, 48 Hrs.) to add depth to Morel's above and beyond criminal drive.

"It was a nice contrast to the brutal killing," he explains. "He's almost gentleman-like and poetic. He's not a villain fans are familiar with seeing me play, because he's more of a manipulator. An orchestrator of activities as opposed to braun. He never really got involved in the fight, but he was playing chess with all of his henchmen and cleaning up his tracks behind him."

Next, Adewale will play an elf turned super-villain named Kurse, who harnesses four times the strength of a Norse god in the upcoming superhero sequel, Thor: The Dark World. And while Adewale would love to play against his standard badass type one of these days — possibly in Farming, a script he worked on at the Sundance Labs in London after leaving behind the much beloved Eko of Lost following the passing of his parents — the actor admits that, despite his own soft veneer, he knows what it takes to be vicious.